Poetry Reading May 7 !

Runyon will be giving a poetry reading in honor of Mother's Day on Saturday, May 7, at Blue Ridge Books in Waynesville, North Carolina, at 2 p.m.  She will be reading from her most recent book, The Passion of Older Women.  

Louise Morgan Runyon

Poetry Reading / Book Signing
Saturday, May 7, 2 p.m.

Blue Ridge Books

428 Hazelwood Ave., Waynesville 28786

~  please wear a mask ~

The reading will be the day before Mother's Day, a perfect time to pick up a gift honoring the women and mothers in your life ~ or you can come and simply listen.   Save the date!!!   A sample poem from the book is included below.    

This book is a manifesto on the wisdom, strength, needs and desires of older women ~ the rising demographic in our country.  It is also a testament to women of the previous generation “who have brought us safe this far.”  The book affirms that older women will not "go gently into this goodnight," the last phase of our lives, and the poems are grounded in a love for the natural world of the Southern Appalachians.  Louise Morgan Runyon is a dancer/choreographer, political activist and former steelworker, as well as poet. To order the book by credit card or PayPal:

Sample Poem          meet and right                it is meet and right / so to do – Episcopal prayer   I shall bring a part of my mother’s ashes back to the hills of North Carolina from whence she came   I shall lift mine eyes up unto these hills from whence cometh my strength   I will bring just a part of my mother back to those hills, one more time it will have been ten years or more since she last made the trip with a New York friend to sit on my cousin’s deck in the afternoon shade and drink gin and tonic, regard the blue mountains   I will bring a part of my mother back to rejoin her revered father, her distant mother, both buried in these hills   I will bring part of my mother back to her roots the roots of the sturdy green galax the roots of the fragrant balsam the gnarly roots of the thicketed rhododendron   back to the place where she climbed Roan Mountain – an enormous trip, with bedroll and Rumford baking powder can, for making biscuits at the top   I will bring her back to where she first tasted alcohol at age (perhaps) 14 that clear white-hot corn liquor in a Mason jar from a still, and never lost the taste   I will bring her back to the place she rode Trixie, the pony who threw her, fellow rebellious hellion   the other part of her ashes will be scattered over Manhattan , at her request where her heart is, though she has spoken longingly of seeing the blue mountains one more time   but she is long since past the point of travel and so, just a part of my mother will come back home with me